There will be no more weekday shopping mall sales for the entire year, the Metro Manila Development Authority announced on Saturday.
This was announced after MMDA officials held a consultative meeting with mall owners who agreed to the proposal to extend the implementation of the no-weekday sales policy to further improve traffic in the metropolis, particularly along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue.
The shopping mall operators also agreed to deliver their goods at nighttime from 11 p.m .up to 5 a.m. the next day. They also gave MMDA the go-signal to extend the implementation of the said policies, acknowledging that these measures helped ease traffic congestion within the vicinity of their establishments.
MMDA acting chairman Thomas Orbos said he is thankful for the support of the mall owners to the traffic decongesting measures of the agency.
“We invited them, the organization of shopping malls operators to thank them for the cooperation they did last Christmas and we asked them to support again our intention this year to help us once more. This only shows that everybody wants to be part of the solution,” he said.
As agreed upon during the meeting, there shall be no conduct of sales and other crowd-drawing events during weekdays and deliveries shall only be from 11 p.m. until dawn.
“On both counts they agreed, which will be for the whole year. Effective Friday and that is a big challenge for them because that’s their business and they agreed. They are very thankful and we are thankful for the show of cooperation,” said Orbos.
Orbos pointed out that the no-weekday sale of the shopping centers only pertains to mall-wide scale.
The MMDA invited mall operators to participate on traffic management within the vicinity of their malls as it is also for their best interest that traffic is well-managed in their areas.
The agency will train the malls’ security personnel on traffic management to augment the present MMDA enforcers deployed near their establishment
“We will train them on traffic management and have them deputized so they can issue traffic violation receipts to erring motorists within their areas of jurisdiction. This will also be a big help for us to control traffic in these areas,” Orbos said.
The measures were introduced and initiated by the Inter-Agency Council on Traffic (I-ACT) late last year in a bid to alleviate traffic particularly during the Christmas season.
IACT is composed of the MMDA, Department of Transportation, Land Transportation Office, Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, and the Philippine National Police – Highway Patrol Group.
Study showed that delivery trucks and container vans loaded with goods, imported items and other saleable merchandise piled up the streets of Metro Manila, which the government claimed, add to the worsening traffic during the “Ber” months.
Orbos, however, clarified that deliveries of perishable goods such as food and ice cream are exempted from the ban.
Among the operators and owners of mall and shopping centers who participated to the agency’s consultative meeting were those from Ayala malls such as Trinoma and Glorietta, Shoe Mart (SM), Robinsons, Centris, Fisher Mall, Star Mall, Eastwood, and Araneta Center, Podium and Walter Mart.
The MMDA also earlier announced that it would extend the for another six months the no window hours policy for the number coding scheme.
The number coding scheme also known as the Unified Vehicular Volume Reduction Program, was devised to keep vehicles out of major thoroughfares on certain days based on the last digit of the license plate.
The system corresponds to 1 and 2 for Monday, 3 and 4 for Tuesday, 5 and 6 for Wednesday, 7 and 8 for Thursday, and 9 and 0 for Friday.
The window hours refer to the five-hour (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) period, but removing this means the vehicles covered by the Number Coding Scheme may not pass Epifanio de los Santos Avenue and other major thoroughfares.
The policy has eased up traffic in Metro Manila, the MMDA said.
Under the existing UVVRP, the scheme is also expanded to cover all circumferential and radial roads in Metro Manila.